Channeling Richard Petty

I don’t fly a lot, maybe once or twice a year.  At this point in my life all my flying is for personal reasons.  If you have ever spent any time in airports or aboard planes you know that from time to time you will see some strange things.  Flying is basically pushing people whose main commonality is the ability to purchase a plane ticket into much too close proximity.

We are flying home from Portland to St. Louis on Southwest.  Being in the C group we are near the back of the plane.  We are getting comfortable waiting for the rest of the passengers to come on board when a gentleman comes marching down the aisle.

What struck me first about this man was that I thought he must be channeling Richard Petty.  He had on a dirty, black felt hat with a very broad, gaudy band that looked metallic, but was probably plastic.   However, he did not have the gaudy feathers that generally adorns Petty’s chapeaus.  He had on Petty style black sunglasses that he never took off during  the whole flight.  He wore a black sleeveless t-shirt and jeans that looked like they had seen much better days.  We guessed him to be 50ish.   He had a neatly trimmed moustache and beard.  All his hair was  beginning to show signs of gray.  My wife swears that he dyed his beard black, but that is not my area of expertise!

Apparently, he was looking for a seat number that matched his boarding pass position designation.  If you are unfamiliar with Southwest boarding practices, they load you in batches after pre-boarding families, disabled, and military.  There are two batches each of As, Bs and Cs.  Once on the plane it is open seating. The flight attendant informed him of this fact.  I initially thought he was going to sit in the aisle seat across and one row in front of me.  After learning of the seating practices, he disappeared then returned. It turned out he was looking for a window seat up towards the front of the plane.  None were available so he returned to the aforementioned seat.

In and out of Portland you can get a good view of Mount Hood from a window seat… if you are on the correct side of the plane which in this case was the left.  I thought he was going to lay across his two row mates in straining to get a view of this spectacular mountain from his aisle seat.

In a three and half hour flight seating this close to an individual you get a chance to observe them much too closely for propriety.  This man apparently had a fetish for large, gaudy, gold jewelry.  I vaguely wondered if it was real gold, my wife said she thought so. If it was, it was 14 karat gold in need of a good cleaning and polishing.  He had three very large rings on his right hand set with various “jewels”. The one on his index finger had a head the size somewhere between a quarter and a half dollar.  On his left hand he had two other gold rings of a somewhat smaller size.  On his left wrist he wore a huge tachometer style watch anchored by a huge gold watch band.  On the band surrounding the watch there appeared to be gold nuggets.  On his right wrist was a gold link bracelet and one of those arthritis bands that were so popular a few years ago.  And of course, around his neck was a gold link necklace that matched his bracelet.  My wife remembers a second necklace that was also of gold.

He seemed to be in reasonable shape.  That is, he was not fat like so many folks today.  Around both his biceps he had tattoos of barb wire encircling the muscles.   He looked like perhaps he worked or had worked construction as his biceps were of larger than normal size, but from the looks of his tattoos his biceps must have been bigger at some point in the past.  Perhaps tattoo wisdom would dictate that encircling art of this sort should be done before you start working out, not when you are at your maximum size.

On longer flights such as this, Southwest will provide snacks such as cookies, crackers, chips, etc. as well as free soft drinks or juices.  He appears to have thought he had hit the jackpot as he had the flight attendant give him snacks on three separate occasions.  For this ritual, most folks take one or two snacks on the flight attendants one and only pass and call it good enough.

But none of that is what really set my mouth gaping.  He was carrying what I thought was a small camera case.  It was some awful shade of green, dirty, and very well worn.  Like his jeans it has seen better days.  It turns out he was using it as a purse or perhaps a travel bag.  About half way through the flight he pulls out a lady’s glittering stocking.  It was the type of stocking you might see a stripper wear or perhaps a Las Vegas show girl.  Needless to say, it caught my attention.  He unrolled this stocking a bit, and begin to pull candy out of it. The type of candy you might get out of a big, bulk bag to pass out to children trick or treating.

I am seriously hoping he was returning from someplace where he attended a very, freaky Halloween party.